Do Referral Contests actually bring in more members?

Because I have to say, from the sites I've seen use them (including some of my own), they never really boosted activity/membership rates as well as the admins hoped they would.

So is there something about the format that just puts people off? That causes members to not bother inviting friends for the chance of winning? What do you think?

 

I've never had one bring in more members.

 

My first referral contest brought in a lot of new members but I have a feeling "cheating" was involved as the prize was money. This last referral competition I had running had some stricter rules and it ended up failing as no one seemed interested. I may start it up again in the future with a XenForo license or $100 or something like that as the main prize and see if that works.

 

I've tried this in the past and people were just making multiple accounts, but we were young then and couldn't catch the signs. If we did it now or in the future, we'll be a lot more careful.

It also did drive in some members.

 

I've found similar results as others have already pointed out when dealing with referral contests in the past. Below are just a few things I encountered:

1.) Multiple duplicate accounts / attempts detected.
2.) New accounts, but no activity from them (ever).
3.) Undetected duplicate accounts from same people creating accounts from a laptop at different free wifi locations.
4.) A slight (not much) boost in activity till the contest was over and then it died off.
5.) There was maybe a 1% to 5% increase in legitimate new referred accounts that remained active after the contest.

I think the bottom line and goal is for new active accounts that contribute to the community and help it grow virally, Anything else is wasted effort. No need to pay just to boost the member database, we can all create fake accounts to do that if we wanted to for free. Results vary and there's referral contests that have been more of a success than others. I just haven't personally seen much success with them over the years.

Eric Lyon

 

I don't think there worth doing theres a forum which has had a referal contest going for just over 1 month and it has gotten them no members as no one has referred anyone.. i won't be doing one i just prefer doing post contests.

 

Nope. In fact, no one participates in ours.

 

Sometimes it works but for the most part it's disastrous resulting in people creating multiple accounts using proxies to beat the system.

 

Depends on the prize. I had a referral contest when my forum was brand new, it helped a lot in bringing us up quickly, the prize was about $10 via PayPal, our staff all together brought in 10 members, users brought in about 7 or 8 during the contest time-frame. However, I've been unsuccessful with any contests revolving around anything other than money.

 

I've seen it work, once upon a time. It really did boost membership numbers and activity. This was done several years ago so I'm not sure how exactly it was set-up, if anyone was wondering.

But nowadays, I would say it's rare for it to work out the way it's wanted to.

 

I've got one currently going, it's being going for 3 weeks and ends at the end of this month for an Amazon Gift Card.

As of yet, No One ... yes NO ONE has entered the contest. Can't even give free stuff away anymore!

 

Yes, you will wind up getting more members for your forum, but most of them won't even bother to go beyond registration. I am going to hold a referral contest the next month on my forum to see how things pan out.

 

I'd expect that, users will cheat if they can get away with it to get the prize money.

What do you think about having a referral contest where the referrals have to sign up and make 5 posts before it counts as a referral?

 

I think that would work out better. Or having them create 10 posts with a few threads would be more beneficial.

 

I had no luck with referral contests when I tried them years ago. I suggest throwing a contest that has your current members create awesome content. Then promote that content and hopefully you will get new registrations based off those who want to take part on what they are reading.

 

@TrumpetMaster Same here. I had no luck with referral contests whatsoever. Am I doing it all wrong?

 

From my experiences, referral contests work under the assumption that everyone knows a lot of people who haven't already joined the site in question. In most cases, that is simply not the case. You are either alone or only have a few friends and most likely couldn't get enough to join to win a contest. Assuming you could even get them to join, they will most likely do the bare minimum to get counted then leave. The people joining to get someone referrals walks into the forum with no intention of ever becoming an active member so they normally don't go against what they intended to do. I really don't think these contests are beneficial to either the forum owner/staff team or the community in question. If you were looking to just inflate member counts with inactive members then yes that would possibly do the trick but that's about it.